Science is Hard -- Propaganda is Easy!

Remember a few months ago when hilariously titled fake ripoffs of bestsellers were all over Amazon’s e-book store — 35 Shades of Grey, or I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, that sort of thing? The playful jokesters of the Cato Institute are using their Koch Industries Megabux to top that! They will soon release a delightful “spoof” of a 2009 US Government report on climate change, except that where the real report looks at real science, the fake “Addendum” contains the reassuring news that climate change is no big deal, hooray!

The addendum matches the layout and design of the original, published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Cover art, “key message” sections, table of contents are all virtually identical, down to the chapter heads, fonts and footnotes….

“It’s not an addendum. It’s a counterfeit,” said John Abraham, an associate professor at the University of Saint Thomas in Minnesota who studies clean power sources. “It’s a continued effort to kick the can down the road: A steady drip, drip, drip of fake reports by false scientists to create a false sense of debate.”

The 2009 report, available online, was prepared for Congress as “the most comprehensive and authoritative report of its kind” by scientists at the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and its findings are regularly updated by that group (spoiler alert: They have not decided they were wrong).

Cato claims its “Addendum” was driven by “the recognition that the original document was lacking in scope and relevant scientific detail.” For instance, the original report suggested that climate change was already having significant effects, and that we should maybe consider doing something about that, because c’mon, that can’t be right. And they’ve had a fair degree of success getting that message out, as PBS’s Frontline recently explored.

The unflattering imitations start right on the cover of the Cato version, which has the same font, color, and general design, including even a very scientific looking bar graph with global mean temperatures.

Beverly Hills surgeon explains at home fix for crepey skin around the arms, legs, and stomach.

Of course, where the real report has a graph covering 108 years of data, showing a sharp rise over time, the Cato graph covers only the last 19 years, and reassuringly shows a random pattern, and not an upward trend. Stop worrying your little heads, you nervous nellies!

Climate Science Watch (the source of the illustration above, before our single improvement) details other subtle adjustments in the Cato presentation of climate science. Notably, not even the Cato Institute seems to feel it can get away with outright denial of global warming; now, it admits “Climate change is unequivocal and human activity plays some part in it,” so instead they mostly just downplay the extent and significance of climate change:

Where the 2009 report says “Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years,” the Cato version says there were two periods of warming in the last century. One was absolutely not due to human activity, and OK, maybe the other “has characteristics that are consistent in part with a changed greenhouse effect.”

Where the original says, “Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health,” the Cato version insists “There is no significant long-term change in US economic output that can be attributed to climate change.”

The government scientists say that human health will be affected by “heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents,” while Cato’s relentless optimists are quite certain that “There is little relationship between life expectancy, wealth and climate. Even under the most dire scenarios, people will be much wealthier and healthier than they are today in the year 2100.”

The capitalism-hating government report thinks compliance with the Kyoto treaty might slow or reduce global warming. The Libertarians at Cato are certain that cheating by China and India means that nothing the developed world does will have any global effect, so let’s not bother.

So, sure, maybe the Cato version deliberately apes the design, layout, and overall feel of a government report, but is anyone likely to be snowed by these deliberate similarities? One climate change denial blogger is quite certain that’s impossible, because if readers “can’t read ‘Cato Institute’ clearly printed on the front and back cover, then they probably aren’t capable of reading and interpreting the original report either.” We guess that settles it!

Scientific American also notes that this isn’t the first attempt by deniers to pass off fake science by making it look like the real thing. In 1998, a petition questioning the science underlying the Kyoto treaty “copied the format and style of a peer-reviewed article” in the very real Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 the Heartland Institute (recently notorious for those “Derp derp the Unabomber believed in global warming” murder billboards) published a fake-science report by the “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change” (NIPCC), a denialist group which just happens to sound a hell of a lot like the UN’s real science comittee, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Rather than simply pointing out and correcting these shams, though, we think it might be more effective to just join in the fun. We look forward to advertising on conservative websites the newest release from Wonkette Books: Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, revised and extended by K. Marx and F. Engels.

Doktor Zoom Is the pseudonym of Marty Kelley, who lives in Boise, Idaho. He acquired his nym from a fan of Silver-Age comics after being differently punctual to too many meetings. He is not a medical doctor, although he has a real PhD (in Rhetoric and Composition).
He loves upvoting your comments but Disqus is broken and his upvotes don't "stick." Just assume he upvoted what you said, because it was excellent and witty.

It's not dead. It's just been marginalized by the kind of people who think required immunization against the worst of the childhood viral diseases are a violation of their god given right to stress and possibly collapse an already weakened public health infrastructure (and if our friends in the red states have their way, it'll be a lot easier sooner rather than later.) Middle America is going to so enjoy a recurrence of the bubonic plague, it'll be like God's vengeance or something, and hey, who doesn't enjoy spitting up blood? And, oh, Happy Halloween.

Beowoof

Only for the Anti-intellectual clods on the right. Some of us really like and appreciate things science has brought us. You know like computers, cell phones, airplanes etc.

snowpointsecret

I dare them to release it right as millions of people are getting bashed by Hurricane Sandy. I'm not sure the timing could be more perfect to have them fall flat on their faces. Then again maybe the power will be out so nobody will notice.

JustPixelz

Nice try libtard, but snow storms definitively prove global warming is a hoax while droughts, storms, record temperatures, melting ice caps and so forth are just normal variations.

memzilla

Even under the most dire scenarios, people will be much wealthier and healthier than they are today in the year 2100.

We will all be much better off in 2100. That's because the Federation will finally be in charge of everything.

JustPixelz

Dubya and the Repubicans said pretty much the same thing about their economic policies: Even under the most dire scenarios, people our base will be much wealthier and healthier than they are today in the year 2010.

CthuNHu

Hey, someone has to be heir to the estates of the late (un)lamented 99%, may they rest in a watery peace.

Pragmatist2

Both of them – Adam and Steve.

Biff

At 148 years old, I don't know how I'm gonna feel about being so wealthy then.

I was listening to TOTN the other day and two of "The Elders" (Jimmy Carter and a former Irish President) were on the show. The Irish woman talked about how the entire planet thinks we're fucking ret@rded for having climate deniers in this country – EVEN AFRICANS – because of how many people are already dealing with the effects of global warming.

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

Sneaky Arctic Pony!

PsycWench

In grad school I had to share an office with a "visiting scientist' who had worked at Cato, and a more unpleasant woman I have yet to meet. Damn you for helping me see why that was.
No, I don't feel sorry for her any more than I pity the Tobacco Institute.

JustPixelz

I assume Cato Girl was there to learn stenography to better record the research findings of their donors.

PsycWench

It is a mystery to many of us as to her purpose, other than to show us how much a person can complain. Stenography might have been a valid career move.

Callyson

Yeah, there is nothing wrong with the weather…Frankenstorm on the East Coast, summer heat that will not fucking go away in Los Angeles…move along folks…

Assholes.

AlterNewt

What? You don't remember all the times it's been 107 degrees here, in October?

Last year in Utah, they were skiing on the 4th of July and golfing on New Years Day.

Completely normal.

Doktor Zoom

I'm surprised that Mitt Romney hasn't claimed "skiing on the 4th of July" as part of his miraculous Olympics Turnaround.

Biel_ze_Bubba

I went skiing on the 4th of July, back in the '70s, on Mt. Lassen, where there was still 20 feet of snow. It WAS normal, or at least not unusual, back then — but I bet we won't be seeing much of that in the future.

As the dairy-aires and beevers know too well, the cows and cattle of today are all required to read Miss Manners, so there is no more bovine burping or farting at the lot, or pasture, or milk barn, or ballet or wherever they may be.

AlterNewt

Looking forward to "The Social Contract" ~ from The Heritage Foundation..

No need to revise Adam Smith. If any of these idiots actually read his stuff, they'd call him a commie anyhow.

doloras

Actually, Marx and Engels with their labour theory of value were actually just "revising and expanding" Adam Smith's economics. It's just that after that, mainstream economics decided that if Smith led to Marx and Engels Smith must be wrong, and so brought in that "neoclassical" "marginalist" voodoo nonsense.

The Cato Report was actually written by one Kato Kaelin while driving OJ to his date with destiny. That's why the damn car drove so slow–Kato was writing while steering with his knees. Highly scientific motherfucker, but it took him this long to translate his writing into something resembling human speak

I didn't give this comment the respect it deserves when I first read it.

James Michael Curley

You all realize that the BarneyFrankenstorm is headed straight for Delaware and Maryland to remind those who try to upset their state's legislative process with referendum attempting to over through the process.

AlterNewt

Assume climate clusterfucked.

LibrarianX

Hoping that Hurricane Sandy goes all Biblical on Cato's ass.

gullywompr

You heard about their new web site: Wonkster.com? They have a Professor Whiz who writes articles with pictures of Pretty Pony on them.

Doktor Zoom

Sounds legit to me.

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

Is that what Ms. Cox is doing instead of writing those books she was supposed to finish?

Abernathy

“ human activity plays some part in it”

Just imagine one of NY's finest abducted the earth and is slowly roasting it alive.

Thanks! There's a certain schlocky awesomeness to those movies. Just knowing that there's a Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus out there is kind of charming.

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

The Day the Earth Derped

cousinitt

Global warming is the new child rape. No, really. Wonkers, I give you…

"Controversial climate scientist Michael Mann, who helped raise global warming’s profile by representing temperatures as a rapidly escalating “hockey stick,” has filed a defamation lawsuit against skeptics at the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Mann said statements by the two organizations that compared him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky were offensive and defamatory, and called them the latest in a series of attacks he and other climate scientists have faced."

These scientists have SO much more important stuff to do than deal with swatting these willfully ignorant flies.
I hate them.

calliecallie

I wish I had something funny to say about global climate change. I want these bastards to burn in hell, but I guess I'll have to settle for their unborn grandchildren.

TootsStansbury

I thought the Beka Book reviews were on Sundays.

Oh and I hate these assholes.

Dr. Nick Riviera

OT: If Handsome Joe Biden's intent was to scare the crap out of me with his "the republicans have 45 million more in the bank", mission accomplished. Terrified. And I don't have any more money to donate :(

bibliotequetress

Next week in the Cato Institute Wish Fulfillment series, Gone WIth The Wind is rewritten as Jes Settin' Heah Enjoying a Pleasant Breeze, a historical novel which sets the record straight: the South wins the war, Scarlett discards her headstrong ways and submits to Rhett as his Biblical wife after Tara is rebuilt by their happy, eager slaves.

OT: I hope our Mid-Atlantic/New England Wonklings are safely hunkered down. This "Sandy" is starting to look a mite ugly.

And here's hoping the Obama campaign and the media make a point of publicly thanking Rmoney and the GOP for their ongoing funding cuts to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency and other disaster-preparedness organizations.

You guys mind y'all be *safe*!!!!!

snowpointsecret

If anyone needed an idea of the scope of this storm, there are high wind watches and warnings in Maine. And Virginia. And as far west as Cleveland.

I'm assuming some people will be gone for a bit with power outages but hopefully everyone's safe out there.

Biel_ze_Bubba

The "perfect storm" of 1991 was a plenty-big nor'easter that swallowed poor unsuspecting Hurricane Grace, absorbing her energy like an alien sucking up her life force. When the resulting monster was done battering the northeast coastline, the remnants of the storm had enough mojo to generate a second full-blown hurricane, which came ashore in Nova Scotia a few days later. It went into the history books (NOT) as the hurricane without a name, because officials didn't want to "confuse" the public.

This one is projected to be bigger. I do hope there are lots of denialists hunkered down in seaside cottages.

Dudleydidwrong

Here I sit in the middle of the Delmarva peninsula waiting for the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay to meet and wash Salisbury University and a thousand chicken farms all the way to West-by god-Virginia into three feet of snow. We aren't frightened because we can swim, you betcha.

fartknocker

Now would be a good time for our East Coast wonketters to petition the Editorix for an emergency relocation drinky thingy in Austin!

You'd think Republicans would be happy to recognize climate change so that they could blame their excessive stank on that and not morbid obesity.

bikerlaureate

Plagarism is apparently okay too, if the name on the covers is correct.

ElPinche

Cato, the McDowell's of institutes. Our research centers have no seeds.

JustPixelz

From what I've seen, the wingers think the Constitution is also "just a theory that's out there". Especially the parts about equality.

Barrelhse

Everyone must be at the dance tonight.

editor

clearly, if you have ideology, you do not need science. true for sex education (just say no, kids), true for global warming (cannot be really happening). who cares about understanding what is, let's focus on what we think should be.

GeorgiaBurning

That's what keeps theocratic governments and societies on the cutting edge of the 15th century. Except when they get pissed off and want to blow something up.

glamourdammerung

What does it say about Republicans when they have to resort to transparent lies because that is all they have besides casual racism at this point?

Let me offer you the first opportunity to publish my free form, blank verse, avante garde poetry. Poetry is sure be the one bright spot in print media in the coming years. And I know you will want to be on the leading edge of this resurgence. Here is a sample:

O happy words, born of letters, sounds and ethereal thoughts.
Play upon the page. As a child might play with a G I Joe.
Sleep quiet words. Wait for the light to shine upon you as the sun greets the field.
O happy words.

Resurgence of print. Mark my "words".

sullivanst

Can't we just arrest these guys, ship 'em to the Hague, and have them tried for crimes against humanity, so we don't have to deal with them any more?

Because make no mistake, the concerted attempt to prevent action to mitigate global climate change is a crime against humanity.

Negropolis

And, we better do it quickly, because the Dutch'll be under water before you know it.

Biel_ze_Bubba

I favor forcing the fuckers to sit tight in their beachfront homes this week. Probably too late, though — I'm sure they've bailed out even while denying what's happening.

sullivanst

I suspect they've long since closed up the beachhouses and returned to their McMansions inland. We're long past Labor Day, that famous celebration of CEOs.

I tried to avoid caffeine, "but just in case" I got a couple of bottles of jolt cuz they had'em at Beavmo!

I am drinking gingerbeer and dark rum now…I might drop some lime in cuz you said so…oh yeah and some ediblez.

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

Jolt? Yes but do you have any cans of Surge? I ask because I care.

Crank_Tango

No. Should I? I can score thai red bull (in the brown bottles like the medicine that it is), but I really wanna sleep tonight. The past couple evenings have been taken up by this Napoleon documentary and occasional masturbating, per dr's rx.

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

Let's have the name of that doctor of yours.

Crank_Tango

C'est le docteur sentir-bone, cum d'habitood !

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

From Google Translate: "This is the feel-bone doctor, cum in habitood"

BTW, I saw the Frontline piece of the issue, the other night, and maybe some will disagree, but it came across as "teaching the controversy" if even not explicitly. Of course, they had to have both sides to retain journalistic credibility, but I thought the side against those few in the scientific community who deny climate change didn't feature the best the scientific community could field for such a piece. Meh.

Cleopatriot

Bullshit. They don't have to publicize lies to retain journalistic integrity.

tessiee

“Derp derp the Unabomber believed in global warming”

"Two and two makes four, even if Hitler says so" — Marjorie Morningstar

No, he was alone. I yelled "Thanks Abe!" but he ignored me. Too much to worry about what with the Union dissolving and all that. Still, he looked good. Considering.

Negropolis

But, besides that, natl_[redacted]_cmdr, how was the show?

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

Coulda been worse!

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

after searching, here's this from a Yahoo answer person:

"Refering to President's Lincoln being shoot in a theater play by James booth, a southerner . While his wife was with him. so therefore she wouldn't be enjoying the play. ironic,ne? dark humor much? lol"

Of course, this poll is racist, because pointing out racism is the very worst kind of racism.

No respect, I tell you; no respect.

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

Damn Maojists.

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

How daer you correct yuor tpyos! I call revrese racsim!

doloras

In other news, water is wet.

bobbert

Yeah, that was actually a pretty depressing read. Sometimes I like to pretend to myself that at least we've made a little bit of progress over the last forty or fifty years (aka, my adult lifetime). And then fucking science brings me down.

You know, I think things will actually be better when the Borg finally get here.

Negropolis

I, for one, welcome our assimilated overlords.

natl_[redacted]_cmdr

thanks for the clash.

exactly.

SorosBot

Why should we trust anything from an institution that knowingly named themselves after the right-wing asshole who invented the filibuster, tried to block the free grain dole for the Roman poors and forced Caesar into starting a civil war out of sheet spite, anyway?

jesus_vs_gojira

What really burns me up (so to speak) is that these fuckers must know that they're full of shit. I mean, they're not that dumb. The average guy in the street — he's dumb. But these people are not dumb. And they are deliberately selling future generations down the river, for the sake of a quick buck now.

My one comfort in all this is knowing that James Inhofe's igloo children will one day curse his name.

Negropolis

It really is about as cynical an opposition as you'll find to proven science. You know it's cynical when you tell them that even if human-driven climate change isn't real (and it is), that the reduction of pollution, alone, on the environment is worth it and they still bullshit you. We used to support this stuff just to have clean air and water.

Generation[redacted]

Or when they say offshore drilling can be done safely and when there's a massive spill they start yelling about how damaging it is to temporarily stop drilling to review safety measures.

Thanks very much for picking up this story and running with it in such a comprehensive & admirable manner. I am thrilled and Humbled.
I'd love to stay and chat here, but I've got to finish up my personal Disaster Preparations for the imminent arrival of Tropical storm/Hurricane/Nor'easter Hybrid Sandy on Monday.
Yep, here comes yet another Unprecedented, severe and potentially catastrophic storm system which seem to be cropping up twice a year now, that will do its level best try to kill me and destroy everything I know, and, if the Cato Institute is to be believed, has nothing at all to do with the massive continuing atmospheric Carbon dumping activities by the Fossil Fuel Industry Corporations that are their primary sources of funding.

This monster storm renders me near speechless. Hoping you and yours avoid the worst and we see conditions develop away from harm and extensive damage. Good luck C_R_eature.

HouseOfTheBlueLights

I'm going to feel really gypped if we make the world a better place, and it all turns out to have been a hoax.

Biel_ze_Bubba

“There is no significant long-term change in US economic output that can be attributed to climate change.”

You really can't grow corn in Iowa any more — maybe they should ask the farmers if that's "significant".

Generation[redacted]

Sure, it sucks to be a farmer or someone who needs to buy food, but that economic loss is more than made up by hedge fund managers who read the real climate science report and then make a killing investing in corn futures.